With the new FR-S and BRZ twins it's obvious Toyota has been secretly Single White Femaling Subaru. In fact, as pointed out by today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe Tercel with 4WD, they have been for a long time. Will this one's price however sting like a stiletto in the head?

Well it looks like your Lotus position is that twenty four grand to gain a little Elan isn't in the cards, and yesterday's tidy Lotus Elan (despite its obvious awesomeness, people what's wrong with you?) fell in a 59% Crack Pipe loss. Hopefully your position wasn't formed by the fact that it was a ‘69 because that's a position that. . . oh, never mind.

Maybe if Dustin Hoffman's character in The Graduate had driven a Lotus Elan instead of an Alfa …
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With the initial Tercel Toyota took its first timid puff on that reefer full of front wheel drive. So concerned were they about the switch to pulling from pushing that they kept the engine in a longitudinal placement just like the precedent rear drive Starlet. By the time the second generation (L20) rolled around, the company got wise to the fact that the layout was perfect for sending power to all four tires and they created the 4WD Tercel wagon. The final piece of the puzzle remained sadly out of reach, as they never managed to figure out how to also power the spare.

The Tercel 4WD wagon is like a California Roll, which means that it combines several tasty attributes all rolled into one, as well as the fact that I know absolutely nothing about Sushi. The base is the standard Tercel platform, on top of which it gains the coil-sprung rear axle out of the Corolla to ensure the tires in the back of the car aren't slackers like the kids in the back of your history class. Covering all that up is a wagon body with extra big back windows for that cool movie theatre ticket window look.

This SR5 edition of indeterminate year comes in metallic silver over copeous dents with a complimentary blue plaid interior. Both inside and out this one has seen some better days. On the outside, the paint is more crazed than a Miami face eater, while the inside shows signs of both wear and tear. The blue paid upholstery - one of the Tercel SR5's notable features - looks like it's crossed the incontinent a couple of times, and the car's 202,000 miles bears out that it just might have. Up top a Yakima roof rack throws a rusty middle finger in the face of aerodynamics, while inside the SR5 there's a sweet dash-mounted incline-o-meter that lets you know everything but your political leanings. Also cool are the front seats which come with shoulder-level plastic handles engendering all kinds of grabtastic shenanigans. Prius wheels provide the connective tissue between generations of Toyota eclecticism, but the seller says you get the stock steelies too.

The 60-horse 1.5-litre OHC four is nothing to write home about unless of course the fact that the Toyota 3A has a carb and is a backflow design leaves your readers enrapt. That engine is mated to a 6-speed manual of all things, the extra gear being an ultra low stump-puller. Should you be completely free of stumps in need of pulling, the row your own-ability will at least make the engine's meager output a little more fun to flex. Sloppy weather won't spoil the fun either, as the nominally front wheel drive Tercel can be shifted on the fly into 4WD with the flick of a lever. Torque is split 50/50 front to rear, and no center diff means that should one end start slipping the other won't be able to do much more than shrug and start spinning itself.

This one is claimed to have had most of its external engine components recently replaced and has the California SMOG certificate to prove it was all done for a reason. It's also resulted in a car that is claimed to be fully working if only a little beat up, which is the best combination of form and function. The seller notes that after making a significant investment in both time and money in the car, his education must now take precedence. If you read through the ad you will probably agree with him.

You may not however agree with his valuation skills nor with his reticence to negotiate that $2,800 price tag. As such, we'll need to figure out if that price for this wagon gets your wag-on. Or, does that price make you feel Tercelebratory?